Tom wrote on May 10, 2011, 10:34:"People who use Amazon still go to bookstores."

Yeah, to browse, then I buy it from Amazon. Brick and mortar has too much overhead to compete with online operations.

Depends.. Amazon requires you to spend $25 to qualify for free shipping(and you must buy from Amazon directly, plus it's not every book). A $10 mass market paperback might be a dollar or two less at Amazon, but unless you're buying enough for free shipping AND you buy from Amazon direct, you'll probably break even buying it in person at a b&m store.

InBlack wrote on May 10, 2011, 10:06:However software is software. Physical CD or DVD discs make for garish christmass decorations but otherwise their physical use is very limited...

Depends on the packaging, though. In Japan, you get tons of extras with games. Artwork and such. In the US, you got those things with special editions(mostly, there are exceptions), but maybe you want to buy that special edition.

When I purchased SoaSE on Impulse they sent me a box with a DVD by mail as well as allowing me to download it through Impulse.

Silicon Avatar wrote on May 9, 2011, 14:30:He doesn't sound like a pod person, he just sounds like a creative person who needs barriers put around him so he will focus and not wander off into la-la land.

This is typical of the "artist's studio" -- nothing ever gets finished because the creative people are always being creative and want to throw everything in. A business always needs at least one solid business person that's able to keep things in check. So long as you avoid going off the deep end with the whole Bobby Kotick "we want to drain all the fun out of game development" brand of crazy.

I'm reminded of a clip from the recent Blizzard 20th anniversary retrospective, where they had the option to sell out to Interplay (the "creative" game company) or to Davidson and Associates (the "business guys"). In the end they chose Davidson, for precisely the reasons outlined above.

(And yes, I do find it ironic that Blizzard ended up married to Activision.)

xXBatmanXx wrote on Apr 21, 2011, 20:49:A nice article talking about what all of us have bitched about for a long time......the R6 games were the best of the best. Even the Swat games were pretty good. You f'd up, you died, and when you died you screwed the rest of your team. It was great.

Flatline wrote on Apr 21, 2011, 13:26:I remember when we first started playing Rogue Spear in multiplayer at LAN parties, I was met with accusations of cheating from a couple of kids who grew up on Quake because I'd drop and take a knee and kill them while they tried to circle strafe me.

I had to explain that much like real life, running and aiming doesn't work well. Spray and pray has the "pray" part in it for a reason too. One of them got it and slowed his play down and did better, but the other just never could get into Rogue Spear.

Verno wrote on Apr 21, 2011, 10:49:Au contraire, I think their reluctance is that they're selling more than they want retail partners to know if anything. I think it's silly to hide this data and his excuse is really flimsy.

That's probably a big part of it.

Other companies do want to see how other games are doing, as well. It might not make a difference to small time developers, but to the Ubisofts, Activisions, etc of the world it is important to the decision making process. Valve is privately owned and managed, they don't have shareholders to answer to that require data based on industry trends and such in order to justify investment. Valve doesn't have shareprices that are affected by the public chart data, public financial data, and all of the analysts discussing the business, either.

Marvin T. Martian wrote on Apr 15, 2011, 17:46:Damn it , I saw jets---they ruined BF2.Hopefully there is a server side option to turn them off and at the very least a one shot missle that does tons damage requiring them to land to repair with a long repair timer as well. Not that fly over the airfield/carrier and have instant repair. As well they should have to land to rearm, again with a long timer before they can take off again.

Game looks sweet though

Screw you. Jets are part of the damned experience. They didn't ruin BF2, they made BF2. BFBC2 is so damned boring because there are no jets and because there's too much damn infantry focus in a game that originally had all aspects of war- air, land, and sea

Krovven wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 18:39:Incorrect. Blizzard operates with it's own corporate leadership and control.

No, you are incorrect. Blizzard as a company may possess it's own internal leadership but those people still answer to the parent company. They are only in control of their own destiny in the sense that a rational person wouldn't kill the goose laying the golden eggs. Of course rationality and the corporate side of the industry always go hand in hand so there is no cause for concern.

bhcompy wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 17:54:Bobby Kotick is CEO and president of the parent company,

Correct.

and thus he has complete control over Blizzard.

Incorrect. Blizzard operates with it's own corporate leadership and control.

No that is not correct, the CEO of the parent company, Vivendi is Jean-Bernard LÚvy

Bobby runs ActivisionMike Morhaime runs Blizzard.

Bobby is CEO of the parent company. Vivendi is the majority owner of outstanding shares(Activision-Blizzard has its own stock ticker because it is its own company). Technically, that puts Vivendi in charge(in a way, as much in charge as a majority shareholder can be), but that doesn't make Vivendi the parent company

bhcompy wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 17:54:Bobby Kotick is CEO and president of the parent company,

Correct.

and thus he has complete control over Blizzard.

Incorrect. Blizzard operates with it's own corporate leadership and control.

That's not really how subsidiaries work. Ultimately, Blizzard is beholden to the same shareholders and Kotick is the man in the General's spot, not anyone from Blizzard. Sure, they may have autonomy to a degree, but that doesn't mean they operate with impunity. Mythic and Verant were autonomous, too.

Dirwulf wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 15:57:Since people keep getting this wrong, Activision did not buy Blizzard. Vivendi, Blizzard's parent company, bought Activision, and changed the name to Activision-Blizzard. Activision has no control over what Blizzard does.

Not quite true. Bobby Kotick is CEO and president of the parent company, and thus he has complete control over Blizzard. Kotick is a man that only cares about shareholder value. Blizzard is still a subsidiary.

Cram wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 14:40:A major reason I don't believe this persons story is that he brought up Titan.

Blizzard is notorious for separating development teams. The SC2 & WoW teams had no idea what the "Hydra" (Diablo 3 code-name) team were working on (though I'm sure they assumed). They were not privy to any information on Hydra, or allowed in the Hydra development offices. Numerous online sources out there on that, I can find and provide those later if this point is important to anyone. I find it difficult if not impossible to believe that a Diablo3 game/bug tester would have any information at all on Titan. However, I don't work at Blizzard and obviously have no idea what's going on in their offices more recently. For all I know it's a massive Titan festival everynight for all employees.

QA works a lot differently than dev, though. That said, if he was really doing QA on Titan, Titan would be fairly well developed at this point. Applications/games are more or less in alpha stage when QA starts

Elessar wrote on Apr 14, 2011, 14:13:If what he says is true, it's more like Torchlight, intended release on consoles and Titan is to be integrated with Facebook, then I'm losing a lot of faith in Blizzard. I'll obviously wait to see if these things are confirmed, but it wouldn't surprise me to see more of what we love get watered down.

One word: Activision. Two more: Publicly owned. One last one: Shareholders.

Wouldn't it be better for your friends to buy it on PC? That way, everyone can play the best version of the game. There will probably be community co-op maps as well in the future.

Wasn't this also the game that was buy a ps3 copy and get a pc copy for free?

Technically you're not getting the PC copy free. You're buying it on Steam and Steam is available on PC, Mac, and soon to be PS3, so you're getting it across the board. The one thing I haven't heard is if you can get access to Steam(and thus Portal 2 and other future PS3 Steam games) on PS3 without buying the game in the first place. I imagine you won't be able to because each game for a console requires a licensing fee to be paid to the console company(Sony/SCE in this case)

Cutter wrote on Apr 13, 2011, 06:15:Yet, every other con in a similar setup makes money. So, maybe they need to change venues if the site is charging Blizzard too much...which I seriously doubt. Blizzard is doing this at a loss? Riiight. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you cheap. Throw out the actual numbers or shut up. My buddy is a top manager for the MTCC (Metro Toronto Convention Center) and the space is the same sizewize which may cost you in the 10's of 1000's per day but you're telling me they're charging Blizzard over 5 million for 2 days? Are you high? They could buy their own property and constuct a similar sized venue for less than that, nevermind utilities. And you seem to forget that probably a considerable chunk of this is a tax-write off to boot. And that says nothing against any goodwill they generate on future sales. To claim in any fashion that this costs them dime one is a load of utter shit. Oh yeah, and lets not forget the merchandising either.

The difference is that other conventions are renting out space to developers and other companies. Who is Blizzard renting out to? Themselves?